Twisted knight, p.36
Twisted Knight, page 36
I look around. At the ceilings. At the walls. At the stage. The small area is ornate in the best way possible with appliquéd walls and thick velvet drapes framing the stage. Polished wood sits on its floor and oversized theater seats are spread out and luxuriously spaced rather than being right on top of each other.
“Holden.” His name sounds like how I feel—in awe. “This place is incredible. Look at the attention to detail on everything.”
I look back to him and find him smiling at me. And there’s something in his smile that has me only wanting to look solely at him when I’m in a room where everything is beautiful.
“It’s an incredible place. Built in the early 1900s. Purchased by a private buyer who restored it to its original state and has kept it that way.”
“How did you find this? I mean”—I look back up and turn my face up to the ceiling—“it’s stunning.”
“Mmm-hmm. It is. Now this? This is where I’m going to need you to trust me, Sunshine.”
“What? Why?” What does he have up his sleeve?
“Please, take a seat.” He motions to a seat in the middle of the front row.
“Why? Why am I getting a feeling I’m not going to like this?” I chuckle nervously.
“Why? Because I asked you to and this is where you stop trying to control the situation and let me handle things.”
I fight my inherent response to tell him I can handle things myself. But I’m able to staunch it. “Has anyone told you that I don’t do well with surprises?”
“You seemed to do perfectly well with the surprise I threw at you today, now, didn’t you?”
Shit. I guess I can’t use that excuse.
He leans in and kisses me, hands cupping my face and lips coaxing me to relax. “Trust me.” There’s a tenderness in his voice, in his eyes, that has emotion lumping in my throat.
It’s like something has suddenly shifted. What is it? I can’t put my finger on it, but it has.
I trust him. And that’s not an easy thing for me.
“C’mon, Sunshine. Sit down for me and close your eyes.”
I do as he asks. It’s incredibly hard for me to not sneak a peek but after everything he’s done tonight, the least I can do is not ruin whatever surprise he has planned.
“You good?” he murmurs as our joined hands lower as he takes a seat beside me.
“I’m good.”
There is shuffling. Some footsteps. A cleared throat.
And then the music begins to play. It’s the slow, melodic sound of a cello. It’s deep and melancholic and when my eyes flash open, the gasp that falls from my shocked lips is as reflexive as breathing.
I stare at the man on stage. He’s imposing in his black tuxedo and absolute confidence. In the way he runs the bow back and forth over the strings. In the way he commands the instrument like the world-class musician he is.
I’m mesmerized. Stunned. Overwhelmed.
“Holden.” Tears well in my eyes but I’m afraid to take my eyes off of the man in front of me. I’m afraid if I do, he’ll disappear, and this will all be a dream. “It’s—it’s…”
“Clayton Seaburn,” he murmurs.
FIFTY-EIGHT
Holden
I may not understand or appreciate the music the man before us is creating, but I know Rowan’s expression and that’s all that matters.
Every penny it took to get him here was worth it when I saw the look on her face during those first notes.
The flash open of her eyes. The shocked O of her lips. The way she said my name as she looked at me fleetingly, as if she were afraid if she took her eyes off him that he’d disappear.
And then there were her reactions during the hour he played for us.
For some pieces, a smile was wide on her face.
For others, tears slid silently down her cheeks.
At times, she moved her hands along with his as if she were playing the notes with him.
At others, she closed her eyes, swaying to its melody like she could feel the music weaving deep down in her soul.
I didn’t feel fucking shit.
I take that back. The music didn’t make me feel fucking shit but the woman I still can’t take my eyes off—even an hour after we parted ways with a man she idolizes—sure as shit does.
“You despise classical music—hell, you even made me change the song on my playlist in the jet today when a piece came on—and yet you did that for me?”
I nod. “Mmm-hmm.”
“And you sat through the entire performance without falling asleep?” she asks. That smile hasn’t left her face once since we left the theater.
Not fucking once.
“I feel privileged.” She holds her arms out and twirls on the sidewalk. “I feel loved. I feel…” She stops and looks at me, her eyes alive with fire and her smile burning bright as she steps into me and whispers, “Incredible.” She brushes her lips against mine. The kiss is soft at first. Simple. “You make me feel that way.” Another brush of lips. Then a tug of her teeth on my bottom lip before she looks back at me with tears welling in her eyes. “Thank you. That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
“It was nothing,” I say gruffly, hating the ball of whatever it is lumping in my throat.
It was just a good deed.
It was just … what, Holden? A way to ease the guilt? A way to show you care when you’re not capable of voicing it? A way to prove to yourself you’re not the bastard you know you are?
A way to leave her with something good from you when you detonate the world all around her?
What the fuck was it? Because those are four very contrasting things.
“It wasn’t nothing,” she says. “It was … you hearing and really listening. It was you understanding something about me that no one else does.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” I itch to put my hands on her. To run them up and down her abdomen. But I know if I touch her, I’m not going to want to stop, and standing on the sidewalk of Central Park South isn’t exactly the place to do it.
As it is, I’ve had to deter her from running barefoot in Central Park like she wanted to do five minutes ago.
“Happy early birthday, Sunshine.”
FIFTY-NINE
Rowan
I study Holden through the darkened penthouse where he sits on the outdoor patio. Its glass walls are slid open, allowing the night breeze to blow in right along with the muted sounds of the city far below.
He paints a striking picture sitting there with his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his bow tie hanging undone around it, and a glass of scotch in his hand that’s resting on the armrest.
He’s looking out into the darkness beyond as if he’s contemplating how he’s going to complete his world domination … and still he somehow looks relaxed. More relaxed than I think I’ve ever seen him before. He’s content. Sexy.
My heart swells in my chest in a way I’ve never felt before. It’s getting harder and harder to ignore. And if I’m honest with myself, I’m not sure that I want to.
But I don’t know what the alternative is. I don’t know where to go from here when it comes to a man it can’t go anywhere with.
He takes a sip of his scotch and absently swirls the remainder around in the glass. I can’t take my eyes off of him. Nor do I want to as I replay every uniquely incredible thing that he’s made happen for me in the last ten hours.
Clayton fucking Seaburn.
My mind is still blown over how he made that happen. How he got the world’s most decorated cellist to fly in from London for a private performance for me. Me!
Moreover, how the idea ever crossed his mind in the first place. I mean … I’m still in complete and utter shock.
I move out to the patio and stand there studying him until he notices me. “Mmmm,” he murmurs, holding his hand out to motion me to come over to him. “You tired?” he asks.
I shrug. “Not really. I’m still on a high from everything. You?”
“I rarely sleep.”
I nod as my phone lights up on the table beside him once again. Holden frowns as he picks it up. “Does the guy ever stop fucking calling you?” he mutters as he makes a show of turning off my phone. “Bye-bye, Chad.” Clearly irritated, he tosses my phone but only when he looks back up does he take notice of me.
I’ve let my dress slide down my body and pool at my feet so that I’m standing in front of Holden in nothing but lacy underthings, my very expensive high heels, and his sapphires.
“Don’t be jealous of Chad. He gets a phone call. You get this.”
“Good god,” he groans as I move forward, straddle his thighs, and lower myself to sit on his lap. “Good fucking god.” His eyes roam over the parts of me he can see, and his cock hardens instantly beneath me.
I lean in so my lips are a breath from his. “Hey, Holden?”
“Hmm?” He runs his hands down my back, his touch electric.
“Mess my lipstick up.”
Our lips meet. It’s slow and taunting at first. Our breaths melding and tongues dancing in the moonlit night. There’s an undercurrent of desperation, but it stays just that. Beneath the surface—an indisputable constant—that takes second to our need to savor.
Our hands on each other’s skin. Our tongues in each other’s mouths. Our breaths shared as one. Our nerves tingling from each point we are touching.
He cups my breast that’s barely contained in my demi cup and then flicks his tongue over it as I grind over his cock still constricted by his slacks. It feels incredible. He feels incredible.
The warmth of his mouth on my skin as he laces openmouthed kisses everywhere he can. The strength in his hands as they move constantly over my skin. The hardness of his cock as I rub my clit over it with each rotation of my hips.
We move slowly. My fingers getting enough buttons undone so that he can get rid of his shirt. Me rising up so that he can push down his pants, his cock now free, thick and heavy against my parted thighs.
We kiss like this. With him ready and me soaking him. We kiss like there is no tomorrow to think about. Like the sun won’t rise for another twenty-four hours. Like we have no life to go back to where we can’t exist like this. Together. Out in public. Just us.
A man I still can’t figure completely out and a woman who is admittedly falling for him.
My breath hitches at the thought, but at the same time he pulls my panties to the side, and I lower myself ever so slowly down onto him so the sound gets lost and misplaced with the action.
“Look at me, Sunshine,” he murmurs as he fills me to capacity.
It takes a moment for me to hear him because I’m so busy riding the waves of pleasure that come with him filling me. But when I do, when my breath returns and mind clears, I find his eyes. His own are having trouble focusing as I purposely squeeze myself around him before forcing him to abide by his own command and meet mine. Our gazes hold and the softest of smiles turns up his lips before he pulls my face closer and his lips close over mine.
I begin to move like that. To rock my hips with our mouths met, our tongues touching, and our hands on the other’s heads. His framing my face and my fingers threaded through the hair at the back of his neck.
We’re hushed murmurs and sated sighs.
We’re rocked hips and grinding pelvises.
We’re slow and steady when all we’ve ever been before is fast and furious.
It’s different this time around. The movements are the same—us both bringing pleasure to the same table—but this time it feels like a five-course meal instead of fast food. Just so damn different.
We savor the connection. The feel of his cock rubbing over every nerve I have within again and again. The rumble of his groan against my tongue when he emits it. The possession in his fingers as they touch me.
We can’t get enough of each other. It’s like we’re ravenous for more but our actions are painstakingly deliberate, intentionally slow as I ride him, as if we fear we’re going to overpower the myriad of sensations pulling us under.
As if we fear what happens when this ends.
“You feel so goddamn good,” he moans against my lips, his hands still in my hair, his lips lifting to meet mine as I grind once again over him. “So wet. So tight. So fucking good.”
“This. You,” I pant out, my own thoughts so scattered by the pleasure surging through me that I can’t finish them.
“Ride me.” The tendons in his neck pull taut. “Take every fucking inch and ride me.”
We soak up the moment. Our bodies. Our pleasure. The moonlight on our skin. The words that we say.
The pace stays the same but the pressure builds. One layer of pleasure upon another. One high chased after the other. One snap of a live wire against another.
“Holden,” I mewl as my body tenses and tightens seconds before I lose all sense of reality and reason.
Before my orgasm swells into a huge crescendo that crashes down all around me until there is only him. Just Holden. Just me. Just our bodies. Just my feelings. Just everything I thought I wanted that now suddenly feels different.
“Row,” he pants out. “Look at me.” My breath stutters and my body shudders. “Look. At. Me.”
It takes everything I have to respond. To meet those sex-drugged eyes of his that hold so much more emotion than lust in them.
But I do.
And I’m so fucking grateful I do because watching him crash over the edge is an incredible sight. To see what I do to him. To see how I make his body react. To see the same damn emotions in his eyes that are confusing the fuck out of me.
I press my lips to his.
It’s easier to get lost in the kiss as he loses himself to his orgasm.
Because this—the kiss, the pleasure, the physical—is so much easier to comprehend than why this just felt so different.
Why the sex between us was different.
Why things just shifted without warning.
Why I fell for Holden Knight.
Why being with him feels like I’ve been struck by lightning.
SIXTY
Holden
I scrub a hand over my face when I lift my phone and see the time.
Eight in the morning.
Jesus.
I slept.
For the first time in forever I slept a solid five fucking hours. I’d like to think it was because I was equally exhausted and sated, but when I shift a bit, I’m pretty fucking sure it has everything to do with the woman currently twisted in the sheets with me.
Her warm skin.
Her even breathing.
Her face on my shoulder and hand resting over my chest.
I freeze and try to clear the cobwebs from my head but nothing shakes loose. They’re not cobwebs, it’s Rowan.
Simply put, it’s fucking Rowan.
What is happening, Knight?
You don’t spend nights with women. You have a good time. You mess up the sheets or the counter or wherever the fuck we find ourselves landing … then you leave. And even when you find yourself going back to the woman, over and over, you sure as shit know better than to blur the lines.
But lying here with Rowan on my chest and no desire to bolt the fuck out the door, I know I blurred the lines. But fuck if I’m struggling to find where the problem is?
But there is a problem.
A huge one.
One that has nothing to do with the scent of her skin and the feel of her body against mine and everything to do with the confusion in my head and pressure in my chest waking up to her. With her.
Fucking complications, man.
I didn’t want them and I’m walking head-fucking-first into them.
Rowan shifts in her sleep and rolls off of me. It’s my chance to escape. To distance myself. To put myself in check.
And yet when I sit up in bed, I can’t take my eyes off of her. The soft lips. Her thick lashes. The pink of her nipples peeking just above the sheet.
What if we’d met under different circumstances? What if she weren’t a Rothschild?
Would that make any difference?
No. It doesn’t change who or what you are, Knight. It only adds a weak spot you can’t risk. An Achilles’ heel when you’re a mere mortal.
But still I sit and watch her. Still I wonder. Still I want.
Get out of the bed, Holden. Get out of the fucking bed.
* * *
Rowan shifts against me. Her legs are curled up and her back is against my side, my arm wrapped around the front of her chest. We’re both staring out the jet’s window as we taxi down the runway and prepare for takeoff. Prepare to get back to a different reality.
We’ve both been quiet this morning.
I’d like to think it’s because we had a late night and we’re both exhausted. I may be clueless when it comes to a lot of things, but I’m well aware our quiet comfort has little to do with being tired and a lot more to do with last night.
The dinner. The concert. The sex on the patio. The sex in the bed. Rowan curling up against me and falling asleep, me with the scent of her hair in my nose and the feel of her hand on my heart. Waking up with someone.
I tried to step out of the bedroom. To busy myself with my phone, with work, but I was drawn to her.
Sleepy yawns, pillow-creased cheeks, and crazy bedhead. Morning coffee overlooking Central Park led to another round of sex. Another bout of confusion for me.
Her eyes on mine. My cock buried in her. My fucking cold heart beating when it shouldn’t be.
I spooked. Spooked to the point that I lied about an unexpected business matter I needed to take care of to create a needed distance.
She went shopping for a bit. I stared at the fucking door she left through.
She came back. I still had no answers as to why my head was so fucked up.
But I can guess. I’m a man who likes to take risks and anything beyond just sex with Rowan is one I can’t take.
So why am I fighting that realization like my life fucking depends on it?
